Day 16

As of our open house on Saturday, our home had been on the market 16 days. Those 2+ weeks seriously felt like an eternity. I don't mean to be a whiner, but I had no idea how exhausting and stressful showing the house would be. Not only did we have to keep the house clean enough to be ready for a showing with an hour's notice, but for almost every appointment I had to leave work and come pick up the dogs, drive them around for about an hour, and then drop them off back at home before heading back to work. It was craziness, and Chad and I kept saying that we weren't sure how long we could keep it up.

Throughout this whole house buying/selling process, we've done a lot of praying. Obviously our desire was to move into a newer and nicer home, but we truly wanted to make sure this was God's desire for us as well. We always try to be good stewards of what God has blessed us with, so we wanted to make sure we were making a good financial investment and weren't just being selfish and materialistic. So while we were hopeful that a buyer for our house would come along, we weren't entirely sure if it would be part of His ultimate plan.

After the first week our house being on the market, it became very clear that what we really needed to be praying for was patience. We were having the hardest time concentrating on anything besides the house sale and showings and phone calls from our Realtor. Along with patience, during that second week we really began praying for peace as well. We really wanted to be content with the home that we have, just in case it wasn't part of God's plan for us to move. As the second week went on, as I drove randomly around town killing time with the dogs during showings, I drove through many different neighborhoods of Lawrence. I think it was during these drives that God really provided that peace that I'd been praying for. As I drove by other people's homes I was continually reminded that our current home and current neighborhood are more than adequate and much more desirable (to us) than at least half of the homes in our city. I began to feel very blessed and very thankful for what we have.

So on day 16 of being on the market, as Chad and I both began to feel more at peace with the idea of staying here should our house not sell, we got a very late call from our agent. We received an offer from a couple who had seen the house at the first open house. They hadn't made an offer the first week since their townhome was still on the market, but their house went under contract during the week and they were ready to buy by the weekend. We negotiated yesterday and signed the contract today. We're optimistically hopeful, but because there are three houses in the transaction chain, and therefore three inspections and three appraisals, there are certainly a lot of pieces of the puzzle that still need to fall into place. If one domino falls, the whole house deal could come crashing down, so we're trying not to count our chickens just yet. However, if everything goes our way, we will close on our house on July 16. We are so thankful and we think God's timing is pretty darn perfect.